In his Townhall.com column from this past weekend, Doug Giles proclaimed that the investigation his daughter Hannah and her husband Joseph Basel are conducting of the Texas Legislature is going to upset the status quo.
Which brings me to this point about this forthcoming expose for those of us of a conservative persuasion: Maybe, the reason we continue to scratch our head regarding why the Right so often sides with the Left on policy issues is maybe… just maybe… our rep’s are blackmailable based upon all the booty they’re tappin’ other than their wives? Who knows? We shall see.
Finally, my advice to the Texas Corrupt-O-Crats who’ve been ridin’ dirty on the Texas taxpayers’ dime is: You’d better get your house in order because it’s about to collapse … as in big time.
But the husband and wife activist/journalist team say they are not trying to knock out Joe Straus as House speaker or to alter the House’s balance of power.
RGR: Are you trying to upset the balance of power in the House? Is there anything you’ve seen that will upset the balance of power in the House?
JB: I don’t think this will upset the balance of power in either house of the legislature, but anything that tips the balance of power toward the voters is better than the current. There’s a lot of people that have printed, intelligent reporters, that have printed that this is somehow about Straus. It’s not. This isn’t about Straus. This isn’t a partisan agenda. There’s no policy agenda…
HG: We’re not holding anything over anyone’s head. Once the footage comes out, if the voters don’t like what they’ve seen, that’s between the politician and their constituents.
RGR: I’ve seen a lot of very good investigations over the years that are one-trick ponies. They get done once. These guys change the law or the system adapts like the Borg. (Star Trek reference) What I would see happening in this case is, next session, instead of going to bars, you’ll have a lot more lobby rooms in hotels. They’ll rent suites.
JB: Drive it underground. That’s already very extensive. There’s a lot of room for ethics reform here in Texas. This is probably one of the worst legislatures I’ve ever worked in for need of ethics reform an undue influence of special interests.
HG: And who knows if anything will get changed. We’re not necessarily trying to change anything. We’re just trying to show the Texas people how their politicians are behaving during session.
JB: We’ll adapt. If it is only going to be lobby fundraisers, we’ll work with lobbyists and fundraisers. And we’ve been at all their fundraisers.
HG: Since this coverage has come out, we’ve had people in the political system in Austin that we haven’t known about who have come to us and said, “Hey, we want to help.”
JB: We’re going to be doing this on a permanent basis here, and we’re expanding this to every statehouse in the country as funding permits. But the Texas project certainly will be a permanent project on an ongoing basis.
